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This article summarizes the proceedings of a symposium presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism, Santa Barbara, California, June 25–30. The overall goal of the symposium was to consider the broad impact of the social environment on the development of and successful or unsuccessful resolution of drinking problems. The presentations addressed multiple social environmental influences including: the influence of children on parents (Dr. Zucker), the influence of peers and parents on adolescents (Dr. Molina), the influence of family members on adult drinking (Dr. McCrady), the influence of adult peers/friends (Dr. Kaskutas), and the influence of the occupational environment (Dr. Ames). Dr. Longabaugh, the symposium discussant, addressed models for understanding the relationships between social influences and drinking problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the proceedings of a symposium presented at the 2005 Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Santa Barbara, California, that spans the interval from toddlerhood to early middle adulthood and addresses questions about how far ahead developmentally we can anticipate alcohol problems and related substance use disorder and how such work informs our understanding of the causes and course of alcohol problems and alcohol use disorder. The context of these questions both historically and developmentally is set by Robert Zucker in an introductory section. Next, Maria Wong and colleagues describe the developmental trajectories of behavioral and affective control from preschool to early adolescence in a high risk for alcoholism longitudinal study and demonstrate their ability to predict alcohol and drug outcomes in adolescence. Duncan Clark and Jack Cornelius follow with a report on the predictive utility of parental disruptive behavior disorders in predicting onset of alcohol problems in their adolescent offspring in late adolescence. Next, Kenneth Leonard and Gregory Homish report on adult development study findings relating baseline individual, spouse, and peer network drinking indicators at marriage onset that distinguish different patterns of stability and change in alcohol problems over the first 2 years of marriage. In the final paper, John Schulenberg and colleagues, utilizing national panel data from the Monitoring the Future Study, which cover the 18- to 35-year age span, show how trajectories of alcohol use in early adulthood predict differential alcohol abuse and dependence outcomes at age 35. Finally, Robert Zucker examines the degree to which the core symposium questions are answered and comments on next step research and clinical practice changes that are called for by these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present study used an empirical, “bottom-up” approach to delineate the structure of the California Child Q-Set (CCQ), a comprehensive set of personality descriptors, in a sample of 373 preschool-aged children. This approach yielded two broad trait dimensions, Adaptive Socialization (emotional stability, compliance, intelligence) and Anxious Inhibition (emotional/behavioral introversion). Results demonstrate the value of using empirical derivation to investigate the structure of personality in young children, speak to the importance of early-evident personality traits for adaptive development, and are consistent with a growing body of evidence indicating that personality structure in young children is similar, but not identical, to that in adults, suggesting a model of broad personality dimensions in childhood that evolve into narrower traits in adulthood. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]